Lee County election supervisor: No Russian hacking here

The indictments were announced Friday by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein as part of the ongoing special counsel probe into potential coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia. (July 13)
AP

“As far as I know it did not happen here,” Doyle said of Gov. Ron DeSantis' statements that the FBI told him it confirmed two attacks on Florida election systems, but won’t allow the counties affected to be identified.

FBI suspicions that software attacks were launched on at least one Florida county were first revealed in the redacted report of Special Counsel Robert Mueller released last month.

Employees of the Lee County Supervisor of Elections office man the scanners used to count ballots in the recount of three races in last week's state election.(Photo: Bill Smith/The News-Press)

Doyle said he is concerned that confidence in state election systems is being undermined more than actual damage to election systems. He said that reports of "hacking" election systems in undisclosed counties only "makes things worse."

“This word hacking is driving people nuts, the secretive stuff is driving everybody in the state crazy,” Doyle said. “Every supervisor in the state is livid, it seems if somebody was hacked, they would know right away so the corrective actions would be implemented immediately.”

Lee County Supervisor of Elections Tommy Foyle speaks with his counsel, Attorney Tom Hart, before the Lee County canvassing board meeting Thursday. The board was overseeing the resumption of a machine recount of votes in the NOv. 6 mid-term election.(Photo: Michael Braun/The News-Press)

Lee County was previously the object of an attempted attack using a technique known as phishing, in which harmful computer payloads are carried in email that appears routine.

“We were one of the counties that received the phishing email, but our firewall actually sanitized it so the attacks never came in,” Doyle said. “It was never opened by anybody here in Lee County.”